About

My name is Andrew Shanahan and I’m an award-winning writer, editor and publisher. Amongst others I’ve written for The Guardian, Time Out and the Good Food Guide, the latter of which was largely one of the reasons I put on weight! I’ve struggled with my weight for a long time (read more about it here) and in part that was because there was just nothing out there to support what I was doing.

My experience of trying to get support for my weight loss was sitting in a Weight Watchers meeting while the leader told the class that “during your time of the month you’ll get fluctuations in your weight so don’t worry if you gain!” I was (fairly) sure that wasn’t my issue and it got me wondering – how many other men out there are struggling just to find some help with their weight loss? That’s when MAN v FAT was born.

My weight loss “gutties” as I lost weight.

I believe that men need support in three forms:

Quality, enjoyable advice, information and tools which give them a no-bullshit view on the facts about weight loss (click for weight loss stories and blogs).

A community where you know that other men are cheering you on and you can give and get support (click for TALK our free weight loss forum).

Weight loss schemes that fit in with your life and that are designed for us – normal(ish) blokes who just want to lose weight (click for weight loss schemes).

I want all men to have that support when it comes to losing weight. More than that, I want MAN v FAT to champion their efforts. I came up with the idea in January 2014 and decided to test it out with a crowdfunding campaign – we raised 102% of a £9k target in April – and gained support from Jamie Oliver, The National Obesity Forum, Weight Concern and The British Dietetic Association. Not only that but we got thousands of subscribers backing the project. It seemed it wasn’t just me who felt this way.

When I launched MAN v FAT it took the form of a digital magazine and after our initial run we expanded this to include the MAN v FAT website and the book, which was published by Headline in December 2014. In 2015 we took the MAN v FAT concept out into the real world and launched online weight loss schemes and the MAN v FAT Football schemes and we’ve been featured on pretty much every newspaper in the world and even on The One Show (yes, Alex Jones is pretty in real life and yes Matt Baker did totally leave me hanging…)

How can you help MAN v FAT?

If you have your own battle against fat to fight then the site is here for you. Here’s some advice on how to get started. If you’d like to support what we’re trying to do then get involved and help us to take MAN v FAT to the 500 million overweight and obese men in the world. Share it on Facebook, stick it on Twitter, discuss it on Reddit, Instagram the living heck out of it. The other thing we’re always interested in is sharing stories of men who have become Amazing Losers – if that’s you or someone you know – tell us all about it.